Mechanization: a step towards advanced Indian agriculture.
Agriculture mechanization doesn’t mean Tractorisation. Mechanization refers to involvement of machinery required for field operations which includes laser land levelers, mowers, combine harvesters, power tiller, sprayers, cultivators etc. which are meant to increase farm productivity and all farmers must have access to such basic machinery but unfortunately, Indian farmers have very limited access to modern farm machinery and generally rely on traditional farming tools and techniques due to lack of knowledge, capital, reach etc. It’s difficult for most of the farmers to afford expensive machinery and in case of buying such it makes them get trapped in debts which proves to be a big reason for their suffering and extreme losses.
Agriculture sector and the pandemic:
The outbreak of Covid-19 last year contracted Indian economy by 6.5% but agriculture was the only sector to have a positive growth of 3.4% along with an expansion seen in farm sector at constant prices in 2020-21. As per recent studies Indian agriculture exports experienced a jump from 17.34% to $41.25 billion in the year 2021.This proved a massive potential of Indian agriculture which can further be improved by better mechanization.
Agriculture sector & Tractor sales in Pandemic:
The tractor sales in the year 2020 marked as 40% increase when compared with 2019 and that too during the pandemic when all other segments were poorly affected with downfall progress. In fact, 2020-2021 proved to be the dynamic year ever in agriculture sector with highest sale of 9 lakh units of tractor, ultimately a good sign of tractor penetration in Indian agriculture.
What does Tractorisation and Mechanization stands for?
Since tractors play an integral role in farm mechanization but tractorisation is just limited to the use of tractor operations like ploughing, cultivation, harvesting crops etc. they are not only the machinery which assist and perform all agricultural operations. Apart from this tractor are not being used much efficiently. While mechanization involves other farm activities like spraying, weeding, threshing, winnowing which are performed by machinery like power tiller, power weeder, power operated sprayers etc. But still many Indian farmers are incapable of using such machinery and are solely dependent on manual methods of spraying and harvesting either by themselves or with the help of farm labors.
Measures to increase mechanization:
Understanding the need of the hour to provide farm equipment, the approach called ‘Uberising farm services’ has been adopted to overcome India’s farm mechanization crisis. The approach includes the availability and accessibility of more no. of equipment at an affordable price so that farmers can pay per use of model. This will allow the needy farmers to rent out their assets and payoff the purchase cost and can generate even more revenue. In view of pandemic, this would be a lucrative idea to help farmers and simultaneously increase mechanization. With the help of digital transformation in this sector farmers can become more resilient against the possible challenges in a prior in terms of access to information, weather predictions, soil fertility etc. Unfortunately, out of 13 crore farmers (small, medium, large and marginal) very few percentages of this number are aware of digitization and its use.
Strategies for betterment of mechanization:
Since India has now improved in digitization so the use of sensors, GPS technology, drones, robot can help farmers to avail opportunities and make use of automated farm equipment with the help of government, private agencies or farmers producer organizations. At least a considerable no. of farmers can begin with various farm associated services with the use of digital technology other than tractor in farmland. This would help them to make use of cost effective technologies as per their choice which can ultimately lead to doubling of income and increased farm productivity. This would lead to a successful beginning of agriculture mechanization in India.